McCray honored for work on transportation needs of low-income
women in South Africa

By Nancy Ross-Flanigan

Keeping
low income women and their babies healthy is more than a public
health concern. Its also a complex challenge for transportation
researchers, says graduate student Talia McCray, whose studies of the
transportation needs of women in South Africa and Detroit have caught
the attention of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

McCray is one of 10 students from around the nation who received
the transportation departments University Transportation
Centers Program Student of the Year Awards. Deputy Secretary of
Transportation Mortimer Downey presented the awards during a ceremony
Jan. 11. In addition to a certificate, the students each received
$1,000 and the opportunity to attend the annual Transportation
Research Board meeting, being held here this week.

McCrays projects in Detroit and in two locations in South
Africa explored how transportation systems affect low income
womens access to prenatal care.

When you look at the health care literature, you often see
that transportation is mentioned as a factor, but few studies have
tried to identify exactly which aspects of transportation have an
effect, says McCray. In her research, she looks at a variety of
factorseverything from the reliability of public transit and
the availability of private transportation services to the condition
and safety of bus stops. She also tries to determine how women decide
where to go for health caredo they always use the nearest
clinic, or will they travel farther to find one where they feel the
care is better and the waits are shorter?

All these different factorstravel time, waiting time,
being pregnant, crime rates at bus stops, plus the fact that many of
the women have more than one childaffect a womans
decision of whether to get health care or not, says McCray, a
doctoral student in the Urban Technological and Environmental
Planning Program of the College of Architecture and Urban
Planning.

In her Detroit research, McCray is working with Healthy Baby
Service, a private transportation service organized in 1988 to try to
reduce infant mortality by overcoming transportation barriers to
prenatal care. The service relies on a single dispatcher who has an
encyclopedic knowledge of the Detroit street system and uses paper
maps as a backup. But concerned about what might happen if that one
person were ever unable to do his job, McCray is helping the
organization automate the process. By using computer programs for
routing and scheduling, she expects to lower the services
costs, while getting women to their appointments on time and reducing
their travel and waiting time.

With a grant from the National Institutes of Health, McCray spent
four months in South Africa in 1998, doing research to find out
whether something like Health Baby Service could succeed there. In
interviews with 500 women and detailed observations of the
transportation system, she found many similarities with Detroit, but
also some daunting differences. For example, some South African women
feel it is not worth the trouble to travel to clinics that often run
out of medicine and supplies. The countrys long history of
apartheid resulted in a fragmented transportation system that still
has not been made whole. And territorial disputes among operators of
private van services called Kombi taxis often erupt into violence and
complicate plans for improving transportation, says McCray. Currently
analyzing the data she collected in South Africa over the summer, she
hopes to come up with a realistic plan for improving womens
access to health care.

Students who receive the Outstanding Student Awards are selected
by the Department of Transportations 10 regional University
Transportation Centers. McCray was selected by the Great Lakes Center
for Truck and Transit Research (part of the U-M Transportation
Research Institute), where she held a graduate assistantship.
Patricia Waller, director of the U-M Transportation Research
Institute, says McCrays unusual combination of interests and
experience make her ideally suited for the kind of research she is
doing. Before coming to U-M, McCray earned dual bachelors
degrees in mathematics and engineering and a masters degree in
engineering and then worked as an engineer for AT&T Bell
Laboratories for three years. But she had long been involved with
social service work through her church and was looking for ways to
use her expertise to help other people.

I strongly believe that it is this abilityto cross
boundaries and reach out to populations and problems that we have not
traditionally considered to be in our domainthat is essential
to the solution of many of the major issues confronting society
today, says Waller. Talia has both the ability to see the
relationships and the expertise to bring to bear on the problems. I
think she is a most unusual student and a most unusual person. I also
believe that she will make innovative and important contributions to
the field.

This is not the first time McCray has had national recognition. In
1990, she was one of 20 students named to USA Todays All USA
College Academic First Team. The same year, she was one of five
outstanding young people to win the Young American Award from the Boy
Scouts of America.